


Ignorance is Bliss

by RatKingDad



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Gen, Mentions of blood and accidental harm, mentions of csa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RatKingDad/pseuds/RatKingDad
Summary: The queens do some research on Cathy and Elizabeth and don’t like what they find.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 92





	Ignorance is Bliss

**Author's Note:**

> This is the article I used for quotes: https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/did-thomas-seymour-sexually-abuse-the-teenage-princess-elizabeth/

There was an unspoken rule that the queens didn’t look up anything about each other. About their children, about themselves, about anything else, they could research all they wanted. But when it came to their fellow wives it was understood that whatever they wanted to know they could ask or they would be told in due time.

Anna was missing Elizabeth, as she did so often. She had loved her, had loved Mary and Edward, all of them were her nieces and her nephew and she the king’s beloved sister. And so she did what she could do and looked her up. The title of one of the results shook her to her very core: Did Thomas Seymour Sexually Abuse the Teenage Princess Elizabeth?

_According to testimonies given in 1549 by Elizabeth’s governess and companion, Kat Ashley, and her cofferer, Thomas Parry, from June 1547 – within days of Seymour’s arrival – Elizabeth started to receive early-morning visits from him. He would “make as though he would come at her” and she would shrink back. The next day, she rose earlier so that he wouldn’t find her in bed, but when he arrived, she was still dressed only in a nightdress, he in a short nightgown, “barelegged in his slippers”. He greeted her and reached out to “strike her on the back or the buttocks familiarly”. Another time he climbed into Elizabeth’s bed, while she was still in it. She continued to get up earlier – if she were dressed, he would bid her good morning and then go on his way._

Anna read with her mouth agape. Thomas Seymour? The man who Cathy sang so lovingly about, the man who she called her true love, who she still got a bit starry-eyed about even after so many centuries? 

_On two occasions, Katherine Parr joined Seymour in his morning visits to the now 14-year-old girl, and they tickled her in bed. On another occasion, Seymour wrestled with Elizabeth in the gardens at Hanworth on an autumnal day, with Katherine nearby – he cut Elizabeth’s gown “into a hundred pieces” while Katherine “held her”. The nature of Katherine’s holding is not clear – held her down? Held her to protect her? Laughingly participated in mere horseplay? We don’t know how Elizabeth reacted._

The article went on to account Elizabeth’s trauma from her abuse, her never getting married, her asking that Thomas not be allowed to touch her, her being sent away or asking to leave. It was all too much and it sent her stomach turning. Worst of all, she couldn’t even put it down to rumors. The article was written by a respected historian with accountable sources.

And what truly disgusted her was that one paragraph. The one she couldn’t get out of her head. Parr had held Elizabeth down. And as much as she wanted to believe that it didn’t mean what she thought it meant, she couldn’t help but be enraged at the same time. Without thinking about the consequences she sent the link to Anne. And really without thinking she sent the link to Kitty.

That’s when everything exploded.

*

Kitty was having a good day, truly. She was relaxed, playing her music and letting Pixie the ferret run over her legs as she did. The little creature’s chittering made her giggle as the sunshine streamed in from her open window along with a warm breeze that smelled sweet and earthy.

Her phone buzzed, the distinct text tone of Anna interrupting the bubbly pop that blasted from the device. The text was a link and suddenly the air in the room went cold. It seemed the sunshine dimmed a few watts and even Pixie understood the mood change, going limp in her lap and letting out concerned squeaks. Maybe it was because there were tears falling on her head, tears that Kitty didn’t realize she was crying. The music felt so painfully fake that she shut it off like she was angry at it. Maybe she was.

She read on, read it all over and over and then looked it up and read some more. It was so much more than she could take. All of it reminded her so painfully of her own situation. And to think of Elizabeth, the girl who she had last seen so young, her little cousin who was so sharp and witty even as a child, who had had to see her die, going through the same thing that Kitty herself went through. And then in waves came the memories.

Deherem with his key to the girl’s chamber visiting her while she slept once a fortnight, calling her special and tearing her apart. Grooming her, she knew now. Had Thomas done the same? Had he stroked Elizabeth’s hair and called her beautiful the way Francis had? Had he told Elizabeth she was so mature for her age like Mannox had? Had Elizabeth believed him?

And Parr, one of her closest confidants, has known, had maybe helped him. It was the ultimate betrayal, learning that someone who had held her as she cried about such a similar thing had not told her about this. It was enough to make her hate Cathy. Call her reactionary, and maybe she was, but Kitty had always felt everything so intensely and this vitriol was no different. Between her sobbing and stopping to be sick, she felt her hatred grow and grow the more she thought about it.

*

Anne didn’t want to believe it. Not Cathy, it couldn’t be. Her little girl, hurt in that way. It was the most horrible thing to have ever learned and yet it was true.

She bounded down the hallway, hearing sobs coming from her cousin’s room. Kitty must have seen the article too. Anne slammed open the door to Cathy’s room, struggling to keep her own tears in check.

“Did Thomas really hurt her?” She growled out. Cathy startled, turning around. 

“What?” Anne was getting impatient, Cathy wasn’t stupid. 

“Elizabeth! My girl! Did you let your husband hurt her?” Anne insisted. She was hoping, praying that Cathy would laugh. That she would say it was all a lie and the article was fake. Her heart sank down to her feet like lead when Cathy looked at her helplessly, beginning to cry. 

“I did,” she let out, more air than voice. Anne choked on a sob, shattering. There was another issue to address though. 

“And you helped him?” Anne asked, voice breaking. Cathy looked down at the floor in pure shame. 

“Never when he was… touching her, but I did help him tease her once or twice. I, I thought it was playful at first I swear. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I was already pregnant and-”

“And yet you still didn’t send her away for months. You had my daughter in your care for a year and change and you did _nothing_ until the very last second,” Anne spat, words tinged with venom. 

“I did what I could!” Cathy defended, standing up to meet Anne’s eye. Anne’s jaw clenched and all thoughts were overcome by fire. 

“Stop making excuses! You could have said something, you could have sent her away sooner and you didn’t!”

“Well, you could have stayed alive and none of it would have happened! You know exactly what running your mouth got you and you think that’s what I should have done!” 

Slap. Sob. Anne’s hand stung as a red mark began to show on Cathy’s cheek. 

“Don’t you think I know that,” Anne said, sharp as knives, “Don’t you think I wish I could have been there for her? But I couldn’t and you could be and you _weren’t,”_

“What do you think speaking up would have done Anne? You saw what happened to Kitty when someone told what she did! She was beheaded! It was for Elizabeth’s safety!”

“What _she_ did? What _SHE did_? You keep my cousin’s name out of your mouth, especially after what I just learned,”

Cathy herself looked appalled at her own words. Anne knew she was reactionary, knew she probably didn’t mean it, but it didn’t matter to her right now. And as she turned to leave she saw that both a silently crying Kitty and an aghast Aragon had been watching the whole exchange. Given how loud she had been, she wouldn’t be shocked if everyone in the house had heard. Good, Anne decided, the more people who know what Cathy did the better.

“Anne, I’m so sorry. Please, please listen,” she begged, grabbing at Anne’s sleeve. Anne shook her head and pulled away. 

“It’s too late for sorry, Parr. About 500 years too late,”

And with that she slammed the door. 

*

The second Anne was in the hallway she collapsed into sobs and Aragon rushed to catch her. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Her goddaughter had been part of hurting such an innocent little soul. Sure, Aragon had never met Elizabeth and frankly had resented the news of her birth, but she would never think of wishing ill on the child. 

Anne wailed in her arms like a wounded animal, more scream than cry and her grip bruising. It was a sound that Aragon recognized because it was one that she had let out herself before. When she had first been dragged away from her daughter she did exactly this, these choking sobs and raspy breaths, the kind that sounded like a toddler who had been stung by a bee for the last time, like it was the worst pain she had ever felt in her life. 

Kit kneeled down beside the two, her own tears falling and wrapping herself around Anne, right on top of Aragon’s arms. Aragon moved her hand to start rubbing Anne’s back.

“I know, I know it hurts, but it wasn’t your fault. No matter what anyone says it wasn’t your fault. It was the fault of the man who hurt her and the people who helped him, never yours” she murmured into Anne’s ear. She could see how the words hit Kitty too, with a force that tightened her arms around Anne. Anne’s sobs didn’t stop until she slumped over, red and pale and shaking with what had to be a miserable mixture of emotional exhaustion and dehydration. At that moment, Aragon considered if she could ever forgive Cathy. 

*

Cathy hung her head low the next morning, not wanting to look her fellow queens in the eye as she went to get coffee. The kitchen, filled always with chatter, went silent when she entered. She held back her words, for once Cathy Parr had nothing to say. Braving a glance she saw all the queens saw a mix of glares and pointed avoidance. What broke her heart the most was the sight of Kitty.

Kitty was curled up by Anna’s side, as she usually was. But her head was tucked into Anna’s shoulder and she hid behind it slightly, gaze only slightly peaking out. It was like- like she was afraid of her. Oh my God, Kitty was afraid of her. She wanted to reach out, to speak to the girl, but the fiery look she got from Jane when she so much as looked too long in Kitty’s direction told her that was a bad idea.

Instead, she did the smart thing (probably the smartest thing she did all week) and grabbed her coffee to bring it upstairs. She didn’t come down all day, not until they had to leave for the theatre, and when she did she noted that while when they normally split between two cars she would sit upfront with her godmother while Anne rode in the back, Anne was already in the passenger’s seat, looking worse for wear. Honestly, it looked like Anne had spent the entire night crying. So, Cathy slid into the backseat, trying to ignore the way that tears began falling down Anne’s face when she met her eye in the mirror and Aragon gripped Anne’s hand protectively. 

When they arrived at the theatre, Cathy found that the ladies had obviously been told the previous night, given the human shield that surrounded Kitty consisting of Jane, Anna, and Joan, and how everyone else was comforting a softly crying Anne. Cathy sidled to the side of the stage, doing warm-ups in the wings while everyone else was on stage. She heard them all chatting for a bit and had to wonder what they were talking about. It made her skin itch and burn to not know. Lack of knowledge was her biggest pet peeve. This was, fortunately, or unfortunately, answered for her as Anna approached, face stone cold and blank. 

“We think it’s in poor taste for you to sing about Thomas tonight. We want to skip straight to the third verse in I Don’t Need You Love until you can figure something out as an alternative,” she asserted, voice like a brick wall. Cathy felt her heart drop to her gut, stirring up the nausea that had been brewing since yesterday. She was giving up her voice, giving up her chance to tell her story. The pain of it gnawed at her brain stem. Cathy swallowed around the lump in her throat before answering,

“Of course, yeah” She tried to send Anna a small smile to lighten the mood but there was no reaction. 

The dressing room was dead silent. Why? Because Jane and Kitty had squeezed themselves into the other room to get ready. Cathy would have almost preferred if they had just kicked her out rather than this, this horrible ache that came with knowing that her family was all together and their exclusion of her meant she was no longer family. 

Fans, of course, noticed the change in the song. They noticed the tension aimed at Cathy and the way Anne said her line about her daughter as a half-sob rather than a joke. Worst of all for Cathy, during All You Wanna Do, when her hand crept up Kitty’s thigh in the final chorus, up and to her inner thigh as that had done hundreds of times before, Kitty froze. And then, Kitty fought as she sang. She shoved Jane off just as she always did, but she practically shrieked as she palmed Cathy away, the heel of her hand making contact with Cathy’s nose. Cathy felt the pain behind her eyes, her vision going black and red as she fell back. Something warm and coppery dripped down her throat. Kitty looked back at her in shock and continued her song, mouthing a quick _I’m so sorry_ once it ended. 

So yeah, her nose was definitely broken and she performed the rest of the show with blood streaming down her face and onto her costume. She practically had to rip it off of her, wincing as it clung to her skin from the dried crimson and left stains on her chest. Cathy asked, small and sheepish, if someone could drive her to A&E. 

“I’ll do it,” Kitty piped up, “After all, it’s my fault you got hurt in the first place. I shouldn’t have freaked out like that, I’m sorry”. Jane placed a hand on her shoulder, giving Kitty a sharp look and then meeting Cathy’s eyes with molten steel that dripped into her eyes and ears. 

“No, Kitty, you should go home and rest. Cathy should have known better given what she said last night,” Jane’s voice was an icy tundra and Cathy feared that she would freeze in it. Why had she implied that it was Kitty’s fault? How could she do that? Why didn’t she just apologize? For the millionth time today, she cursed her own stupidity. “I’ll drive her,”

Jane showed none of her usual warmth or love during the car ride or the trip to the hospital. She didn’t call Cathy “darling”, didn’t ask if she needed anything, didn’t talk her through the growing pain in her face. It was silent, clinical, like Cathy was gum on the bottom of her shoe that she was struggling to scrape off. 

It was on the ride home when Jane broke the quiet. 

“If you think that I’m letting you close to my Kitty alone any time in the near future, then you’re dumber than I thought, Catherine. Prove yourself trustworthy and I’ll consider it eventually,” her voice was dull, like the stone she claimed her heart was made out of. 

Cathy wanted to scream, wanted to insist that she _had_ proven herself trustworthy! She had never hurt Kitty before! She had never hurt any of them! How dare they throw her out like this! 

For once though, she kept her mouth shut, stewing in her melancholy and frustration. All the queens were waiting in the living room when they got home, and their eyes shot immediately to Cathy as she walked in. Anne was, once again, teary eyed, but she was the first to speak. 

“I want to forgive you, but I don’t know how,” she breathed out. Cathy felt her own tears start. 

“Bobbie, please, I’m so sorry,”

“Don’t- don’t call me that right now. And I know you’re sorry. I know that you regret it, I know, I know, I know” Anne was almost sobbing now, held up only by Aragon’s arms. But still, Cathy felt knives drive into her from her steady piercing gaze. “It’s gonna take a long long time, but I still love you. And I want to forgive you eventually. Are you willing to wait?” 

“I’ll wait for the next 500 years if that’s what it takes,” Cathy pleaded through tears. Anne looked to the others, seemingly for approval, and upon receiving a host of nods ( Kitty’s immediate and the other’s more reluctant) replied. 

“Then I’ll try my best to accept your apology, just like I know you’re trying your best to be better”

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be a complex take on this topic, no one person is the villain here and no one is being treated with undue cruelty. The queens can't and shouldn't forgive Cathy immediately, and Cathy doesn't expect them to. They're all adults and they need to talk and grow through this, but their immediate reaction is going to be from the most visceral parts of them. No one here is completely in the wrong, that's not the point of this. Cathy isn't being bullied, she isn't being vilified by the other, she made a mistake and she has to atone for it. I hope you can understand that.


End file.
